Will Amazon Release a 7.8-inch Kindle in 2017?

Now that Kobo offers the Kobo Aura One with a screen size of 7.8-inches, it makes you wonder if Amazon is going to release a similar-sized Kindle in 2017.

Currently Amazon sells four different Kindles. All of them have 6-inch E Ink screens, and three of the four have the exact same 300 ppi E Ink Carta screen.

Lots of people have been calling for a larger Kindle for years; it’s probably the #1 requested feature.

Amazon teased everyone back in 2009 and 2010 with their 9.7-inch Kindle DX, but it was abandoned after the 2nd generation model and never updated again.

Since then Amazon has released ten different 6-inch Kindles in a row with no other sizes to be seen.

Now that the 7.8-inch Kobo Aura One has proven to be a hot commodity with an in-between screen size, perhaps 2017 could finally be the year for a larger Kindle.

The 7.8-inch screen is a good size without being too heavy. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I much prefer the larger screen over a typical 6-inch screen. The picture above shows the 6-inch Kindle Paperwhite next to the Kobo Aura One from the comparison review.

With the 7.8-inch 300 ppi E Ink screens now in production, Amazon would have to be extremely stubborn to not use them. If people want a larger Kindle what’s the point of denying it to them?

The Kindle’s tenth anniversary is later this year. The 1st generation Kindle was released in November 2007. Amazon needs to do something big for the occasion. A bigger Kindle would do the trick just fine.

25 Responses to “Will Amazon Release a 7.8-inch Kindle in 2017?”

I really wish they would bring out a larger Kindle e-ink reader. I have the Kobo Aura One and absolutely love it. I bought a second one when it became available again for a short time just to have a back-up. I am buying most of my books from Kobo now but Amazon’s inventory is so much better. The larger Kindle would definitely bring me back to Amazon. But for now the larger reader beats the larger inventory in importance for me.

As mentioned, I don’t think Amazon has much of a choice except to go larger unless they are extremely stubborn which I believe they are.
I mean seriously how are you going to improve the paperwhite? Add more LED lights? No, we have the Voyage for that. What are you gonna do to the voyage? Add page turn buttons? No it already has that and so does the Oasis? What are you going to do to the Oasis? Make it thinner? Add a sheepskin cover?
There is literally nothing that Amazon can do on the 6 inch hardware that would be considered crucial and absolutely necessary, not even waterproof nor more storage, not thinner nor lighter nor anything like that.
There is only two things that Amazon can do
1. Make another 6″ Kindle with something like 400ppi overkill and charger $500 for it. (This would make no sense but neither does the Oasis make any sense and it would be extremely stubborn) although I wouldn’t put it past Amazon to do this.
2. Finally listened to the customers and give them what they want which is a larger Kindle and us not undercut the other options that they currently have. The only downside to a larger kindle would be the cost. I can’t imagine it being sold for less than $500 considering the ridiculous price of the Kindle Oasis. However I would be the first in line to purchase it with the installment plan.
Another thing Amazon needs to focus on is software. We need more flexibility, more font size options, weight adjustments, justification control, more fonts. And for the love of God can we please get the book cover in sleep mode!!!!!

I really don’t think the people at Amazon Kindle are ignorant of the fact that a 7″ is what consumers want. I think they are waiting to see how the market for a 7″ evolves and I can imagine they’ve had a 7″ 9″ and 13″ on the drawing boards for the past few years if not more. I predict (LOL) that we will see one before the end of the year. As others mentioned above, there isn’t much else they can do with the 6″ that would impress anybody unless it grew legs and could walk along besides you.

I think it is appropriate for kindle to upsize the kindle. But the one feature i do so wish they would improve is the mechanical voice when listening to a book being read. That voice is very nonrelenting and annoying. I listen as i work sometimes then realize it is grinding my senses. I changed the voice type and it helped but robot is not my forte.

I fully agree, an 8-inch e-ink Kindle is WAY overdue, but I wouldn’t stop there. Amazon bought Samsung’s electrowetting technology (color e-paper) several years ago. By now there should be some results… Or, they could come out with the world’s first-ever two-sided tablet (like a large Yotaphone) – after all, AMAZON HOLDS THE PATENT ON THAT TECHNOLOGY! I am extremely angry at them for wasting their (and our) time with gimmicks like the useless Fire phone or countless near-identical Kindles, when they are sitting on seriously cool technology.

Hard to believe Kobo has beat Amazon to the punch on larger devices, first with the H2O, then with the Aura One and again witht the soon to be H2O edition 2. Seems as though Amazon is hybernating and just doesn’t care. Based on ebook figures, they control 80-85% of the worlds ebook sales so why should they. I’m thinking they believe they already have their “larger” device covered since most people tend to read on their tablet since the ereader is a niche market. They probably conducted an extensive study of how many sales come from what platform along with how many people use tablets as opposed to ereaders and found it was simply not worth it.
Sure they could’ve released a larger Kindle by now but they don’t care so as long as they’re seitting pretty at the top of the ebook world. In Amazons eyes, nothing needs to be fixed. Especially when Kobo is at the very bottom of the totem pole.
This is the problems with Monopolies, absolute power corrupts absolutely. In the end we the consumers suffer. In stark contrast, look at how Samsung forced Apple to step up its game or look at what’s going on in perhaps the most competitive of business, wireless. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint are at each others throats and the comsumer wins because plans get cheaper and cheaper while offering more features. Competition breeds innovation. Which is the primary reason Amazon will continue to hynernate and sit on their ass. So as long as they have the best ecosystem, cutting edge hardware doesn’t matter. Look at Android, they have beautiful phones, top notch specs, 4K screens, 6gb ram, customization options galore, wireless charging, etc and yet their sales pale in comparison to Apple whose hardware is way behind that of Androids. Why? Eco-system.

Well despite Amazon having a better inventory, I have still migrated to Kobo – because of the Kobo Aura One and if Barnes and Noble had come out with the larger ereader, I would have migrated to them. I read a lot on my iPad mini, but truly prefer e-ink. I always said whoever came out with the larger e-ink device would get my exclusive business and Kobo did. Amazon is in my rear view mirror and I will not go back unless they match the KA1 in size. If they don’t then they have lost a long time heavy reading customer and I am sure I am not the only one. You might have to go thru some extra hoops to buy the KA1 but the device is worth it because it is exactly what is wanted. Maybe if more people migrated to Kobo instead of settling for the small Kindles Amazon would wake up to what they needed to do.

In order to force Amazon to make products that most consumers want, I would like to give other competitors a try. At least, they take customers into consideration and renew their products regularly. An active ereader market should not be the monopoly of Amazon!

The only way Amazon will budge is if their Monopoly hold on ebooks is at risk. It’s hard to believe giant powerhouse corporations like Google playbooks and Apole ibooks together don’t even put a dent into Amazon’s iron grip on ebook sales. For this to happen both Apple AND Google will have to offer a bigger selection, ebook monthly supscription services AND drastically lower prices to be competitive PLUS develop their very own dedicated eReader that is also sold in stores in the U.S.
This is unlikely to happen as books are not in those respective companies forte. They have bigger fish to fry so to speak. So of and when this does happen, one can expect Amazon to continue with 6″ Kindles with incremental updates every year and a half or so.

Very much doubt they will release bigger Kindle for a few simple reasons:
1. Amazon is not feeling threatened by Kobo’s business.
2. They had their experience with Kindle DX… Maybe it was good interesting device but still it was a niche product which doesn’t fit into “moving bulk” business model.
3. Most likely I’d expect them to add the adjustable light feature like Kobo Aura One has.
4. And let’s be real, Amazon has built such a business where they would be able to give away Kindle readers for free since the person getting Kindle immediately sucked in Amazon’s echo system. And I strongly believe that price for e-books in digital age are VERY expensive. Amazon has hyper-profits on e-books given that distribution cost is marginal in comparison with brick and mortal way of printing, reading and buying books.

So going back to the subject, I’m not convinced they will create a bigger Kindle because they need to sell Kindle’s at marginal profit price to attract more people into echo system. Mind it is not my words but Bezos’s but he said at some point that by giving prime member Amazon Prime Video with original content for free they are pushing sales of toilet paper and wash powder… With Kindle same story, sell one Kindle with marginal profit and you have a guaranty profits from selling books which times exceeding they can get from selling limited amount of premium priced devices.

Yes, you might remind me about Kindle Oasis. Stock the pop-corn and watch the show, I can bet that it is not going to last long on the market.

I don’t think Amazon will release a larger reader either. One major reason is their reluctance to provide epub support on Kindle devices. A large portion of those in the market for a larger reader have probably already purchased one of the larger readers on the market and they are all based on epubs. So for Amazon to lure any of these buyers to a larger Kindle would mean that they would have to give up their existing library. [Calibre magic can’t be considered because no one would be DeDRMing their ebooks to change the format, right? 😉 ]

It would be great if Kobo and Barnes and Noble decided to really go after Amazon. I suspect that they make way more money selling content than they do devices anyway. Perhaps they should share the design cost for a larger, “Kindle killer” device. Then they could both brand the same hardware and allow users to purchase books from either the Koko or Nook stores. I envision the device being sold in Canada under the Kobo label and in the US under the Nook label. I don’t own a Aura One, but would consider it if I could put my hands on one in a store, or get it from a US based store so a return would be easy if I find I don’t like it. Based on internet reviews, perhaps my idea needs tweaking and all the needs to happen is B&N discontinue the Nook e-reader line and create a partnership with Kobo to sell Kobo devices which can read Nook books. It seems to me that the other e-reader manufactures are going to have to team up if they want to truly challenge Amazon.

The only way to return a Kobo is to slang it on eBay, otherwise you’ll be waiting weeks for a refund through either Kobo US or Chapters Indigo. I love everything about the Aura One except the screen, not the size as I love that but the screen was a major disappointment! I think it has too many layers going on with the capacitive screen where the text doesn’t POP out and isnt black as for example on my Voyage. This was apparent especially reading at night where the text looked gray and the background light kind of blended in with the text. Hard to explain bit I ended up selling both on eBay which was very unfortunate as it’s a beautiful device. I just couldn’t get past the poor quality screen.
I would love for Amazon to release a Larger Voyage, same design and everything just larger but I also believe that’s not happening. Amazon simply doesn’t care what it’s customers want. Why listen to customers when they’ll keeping coming back anyway?

The battery drain issues with the Aura One have been fixed for most people with software updates, but it does have less battery life than other ereaders. See my Kobo Aura One review for more details about it. There’s no evidence on any new Kindle yet, just speculation.

Every year around October/November tolino releases a new ereader. I called them two times some weeks ago and tried to get some information. One of them let out some clues that it will be a larger ereader. This ereader will be revealed first at the book fair in Frankfurt in October. And I expect an 7.8 inch ereader to be revealed. Beside ImcoSys (at the IFA fair they showed an 8 inch tablet with e-ink display and there will be two versions Windows and Android at the end of the year), Icarus and Tolino I also expect Amazon to release an 7.8 inch device.

Note to Jeff Bezos. I have stubbornly held on to my Kindle DX, even though it is heavy, old and clunky compared to the newer models the big screen makes it worth it. When you come out with a large screen model, I will be one of the first in line to buy it.